Closing Lead Refineries

Shoemoo

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Nov 1, 2011
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Boise, ID
(looks at link)

Huge popup telling us to help stop the "anti-Christian bigotry" in the military and a comments section full of hysterical replies calling for abolishing the EPA and calling the President a communist Muslim.

Seems totally legit.

Seriously, there's a lot more to the story that "evil government agency wants to take our ammo." All of the changes in the lead standard were put in place under Bush, so you can't even blame Obama.

http://kbia.org/post/end-lead-laced-era-polluting-smelter-close-after-120-years

It was the last smelter in the US that could smelt lead from raw ore. There are other smelters in the US that can reclaim lead from other sources. Air and dust pollution from lead smelters is a huge problem to people living in the community. The plant was releasing 30 tons of lead into the air every year. While lead is reasonably safe to work with in the amounts we handle, let's not forget it's poisonous when ingested or absorbed through the lungs.

"We tested all the kids that lived in that first quarter-mile, half-mile, three-fourths mile, mile," explains Denise Jordan-Izaguirre with the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2001, the agency worked with state and local health officials to try to test every kid under six for lead in their blood. The results, she says, weren't exactly surprising.

"I think we were all appalled – not surprised – appalled. That it was this bad."

They laid out the results like a bulls-eye, concentric circles of contamination radiating out from the Doe Run smelter. Within a quarter mile, 56 percent of kids had high levels of lead in their blood. At a half-mile, it was 52 percent. Jordan-Izaguirre says she’d never seen numbers like that, except in the developing world.

 

LedHed

Sponsor
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Mar 23, 2010
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So Cal I.E.
Didn't like the pop up - don't like pop ups!!

and I just gave away 5 buckets of wheel weights...........
 

JSC

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Mar 31, 2010
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Freeport FL
Some reason I did not get the "Pop=Up" Don't like them either.
Got one note back
"Just think, if the folks get the lead out of their a$$es in DC, we would have an unlimited supply."
:)
It is really a serious problem when you have to rely on a product from another country when you have the natural resource available here in the US ... (Oil - Steel & etc)

LH You gave away some bucks on that deal ... have not checked the current price on lead but know it will be going up
 

Bucho

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Mar 29, 2013
Messages
919
Location
Kiel, Germany
A friend of mine is a dedicated rifle hunter. He just got married and is about to get into the family planning... With this in mind, he has switched over to lead-free ammo for his own hunting. Lead poisening is the #1 reason of death among lake eagles over here. Most of it comes from left-out guts from hunted animals. On impact, the lead shot disintegrates into fine dust and spreads all over the deer`s body.

On the other hand, he just showed me a pic of a deer he literally gutted with a shot of his new lead-free ammo. It delivered so much energy into the body that the entire digestive system was blown out, lying on the grass.

What I´m trying to say is that lead really is toxic. Just because it doesn´t give you a hangover it doesn`t mean it isn´t harmful. On the other hand there is plenty of other stuff to shoot impressively big holes into each other with, even if lead prices go up. If you can´t produce your lead safe and clean in a way that meets international competition - why not leave it to them? Save the ore for another day when it has gotten really scarce.

Personly, if I had the chance to buy raw jigheads in the way I need them, I would jump at it, instead of breathing toxic fumes and touch file dust every second day. I´d rather focus on marketing, R&D, powder painting and tying, since that´s were the money is.
 

Hawnjigs

KISS
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Mar 23, 2010
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Ogallala, NE
"30 tons of lead into the air every year"?!

I might blow at most a few ounces out thru my suck fan, and my blood lead level was still 60% over the danger threshhold.
 

Shoemoo

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Nov 1, 2011
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Boise, ID
Upon further research, the closing of this smelter probably isn't going to affect either ammo or jig makers. This particular smelter did not supply any lead to ammunition manufacturers, and AFAIK none to tackle manufacturers. The vast majority of lead is used to manufacture lead-acid batteries, and there's a very efficient system in place for reclaiming, recycling and reusing them. Over 90% of the lead used in the US is recycled. Even the company closing the primary smelter runs a secondary smelter for recycling lead. At least as far as the availability of lead ammo and jigs is concerned, closing this plant is a non-issue. Recycled lead is just as good as new lead, and most new lead already comes from other countries.

http://bearingarms.com/its-the-end-of-the-primary-lead-smelter-in-herculaneum-and-i-feel-fine/
 

Shoemoo

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Joined
Nov 1, 2011
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889
Location
Boise, ID
BTW, here's some information on a mining/smelting operation the company runs in Peru. They bought the smelter from the Peruvian government in 1997 under the condition that they improve the conditions at the plant. Instead, they shipped the profits from the mine back home so billionaire Ira Rennert (the owner of the holding company that owns Doe Run) could build himself a $136 million dollar mansion in New York.

The pollution has turned the surrounding landscape into a blasted wasteland that literally looks like a nuclear bomb was dropped nearby. The people are all being slowly poisoned from the heavy metals and the river that runs by the plant has shores that are blackened with industrial waste. It really is deplorable. I have absolutely no doubt they would do the same here if there weren't environmental regulations to stop them.

http://content.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1661031_1661028_1661020,00.html
http://www.oxfamamerica.org/articles/la-oroya-peru-poisoned-town
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/...on-environment-doe-run-renco-la-oroya-smelter

La-Oroya-2006-Flor-Ruiz-1024x680.jpg

La%20Oroya,%20Thomas%20Quirynen.jpg


 
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